


Past, Present, Future

by manic_intent



Series: Past, Present, Future [1]
Category: Man of Steel (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Russell Crowe has no business looking so hot in alien clothes, Science Fiction Adventure, Slash excuse, That AU where Jor-El is imprisoned on the prison ship as well, and if he doesn't want to be jettisoned he needs to learn how to earn his keep, because of stealing the genetic codex of Krypton and all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 16:02:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They salvage a replicator from a ruin, five days after their world ends, and it's a sorry sight, seeing Krypton's finest fall upon the bland protein cubes that the barely functional machine coughs up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Past, Present, Future

**Author's Note:**

> AU where Dru-Zod doesn't kill Jor-El, and they're both sentenced to imprisonment in the Phantom Zone: Jor-El because he stole and seemingly destroyed the Codex. So they both survive the exploding planet, ftw.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I'm NOT familiar with Superman comics canon: this is all either wiki'd or made up. Sorry. :3
> 
> Further edits: I know that according to comics!canon, you cannot in fact die in the Phantom Zone. However, in movieverse, Zod mentions being sent to the Phantom Zone to starve. So I've modded canon a little...

I.

They salvage a replicator from a ruin, five days after their world ends, and it's a sorry sight, seeing Krypton's finest fall upon the bland protein cubes that the barely functional machine coughs up. Cubes won't be enough to take away hunger, but it takes the edge off, and Dru-Zod eats as much as he can bear of the taste before he quietly piles a few of the gelatinous gray cubes onto a salvaged plate.

Faora-Ul glances up at him when he gets up to leave, her eyes darting to the plate and back to his face. She doesn't voice her accusation, but he hears it anyway.

"Jor-El is our only hope of getting out of the Phantom Zone," Dru-Zod finds himself saying, his tone defensive before he remembers to modulate it to neutral. "I want a report of the ruin delivered to me within this klick."

She nods, and says nothing, though the others exchange glances as he leaves the room. Dru-Zod grits his teeth. Jor-El's silence and studied refusal to do anything but sit quietly in a corner of the prison ship has not gone well with his men. In the Military Guild, after all, the useless were quickly culled. 

The resentment of Faora-Ul and the others would not have been so sharp had Jor-El been just an ordinary scientist, Dru-Zod reflected, as his footsteps echoed down the plasteel corridors, darkened to conserve ship power, but this past week groping about the Phantom Zone could have proceeded far more efficiently had Jor-El offered even token input. After all, Jor-El was the one who had designed the prison ships and their phantom drives, and Krypton's most famous son had been born with an eidetic memory. He would have known the coordinates of the first prison ships sent through to the Phantom Zone: those that had been built with replicators and not cryoterm storage. 

Jor-El is sitting exactly where Dru-Zod had seen him last: in the starboard observation deck. The purpose of the chamber is lost on Dru-Zod: after all, the ship is an unmanned prison ship, but there are still spaces like this chamber, and basic cabin and life support facilities on the upper levels. There's no furniture in the room, however, and Jor-El is seated cross-legged on the floor, his back upright, hands folded in his lap, staring out into the vast emptiness of the Phantom Zone. He doesn't look up when Dru-Zod sets down the plate beside him.

"We found a replicator," Dru-Zod finds himself saying gruffly. "Second wave prison ship. The Adjunct. All its inmates are long dead," he adds, when Jor-El doesn't react, and continues, savagely, "They killed each other, and then the last Kryptonian killed himself. Bashed his head to a pulp against the wall. Must have happened at least a hundred cycles ago."

This earns him a startled look, and Dru-Zod feels a visceral satisfaction that lasts until Jor-El murmurs, sounding genuinely confused, "But why would they do that? The Adjunct's prison term was two hundred cycles, they would have been free if… free if-" He yelps when Dru-Zod grabs him by the shoulders, shaking him. 

" _Because_ ," Dru-Zod growls, "There's _nothing_ 'humane' about being locked up in _limbo_ , Jor, left to rot for hundreds of cycles with nothing to do but watch empty space and eat protein cubes! What did you _think_ would happen?"

Jor-El grows very pale, and Dru-Zod shakes him one more time before letting him go. "Studies indicated-"

"By the Oversoul," Dru-Zod cuts in impatiently, "You and your 'studies'. Skip drones sent into the Phantom Zone are hardly indicative, and even if they were, surely you should have studied the psychological effects of penal isolation, hn?" 

"What could we do?" Jor-El retorts, and finally, thank Aethyr, there's that steely stubbornness in his eyes, better than the dim blankness that's settled there since they watched their world die. "There's no land left on Krypton, no resources to upkeep a penal colony, not to mention the privations that such institutions usually subject their inmates to… what _were_ we to do? Execute our criminals?"

"You've killed them anyway," Dru-Zod says, and he knows that he should be enjoying how his words obviously hurt Jor-El more than his wristblade could, but he doesn't. "You've killed them all, Jor. Slowly. Shooting 'our criminals' in the back would have been kinder." 

"The… the other ships," Jor-El stumbles briefly over his words. "Surely…"

"We've tried to hail the other prison ships. There's nothing out here alive but us."

"Perhaps…" Jor-El trails off, nibbling on his lower lip as he stares out into empty space, and Dru-Zod's a little surprised by the faint warmth that swells inside his chest, surprised that he still remembers what Jor-El looks like when his mind is focused on a problem to the exception of everything else. 

The Academy had not been kind to Jor-El, for all that he excelled in marksmanship and basic combat, like all members of his House. It had been a bittersweet day when the Science Council had sorted Jor-El into their research wing. Dru-Zod thinks back, and remembers only a childish resentment at the loss of a friend, little else. His old selfishness amuses him rather than shames him, and he stays silent, waiting. Perhaps it's truly sentiment that he's still attempting diplomacy with Jor-El when his old friend's proven to be such a remarkable pain in the aether.

"Perhaps we should check on the other prison ships," Jor-El says finally, uncertainly. "Krypton's… Krypton's destruction may have had adverse effects on their systems. They were not sent to the Phantom Zone to die." 

_Finally_ , Dru-Zod thinks, but he tries not to let any of his triumph and relief show. "It's good that you think that way," he says carefully, "Because I have no intention of allowing any of us to share the fate of the Adjunct's crew." 

That gets a smile, so faint and quick that Dru-Zod blinks, and then Jor-El is rising to his feet. Dru-Zod reaches out without thinking and pushes him back down. "Eat," he instructs, "And then meet me on the bridge. I'll check," he adds irritably, when Jor-El looks torn. 

Jor-El snorts, turning to the plate, and the gesture is so painfully familiar that Dru-Zod briefly remembers the minimal steel lines of Academy bunks and endless bits and pieces of disassembled machinery strewn in haphazard patterns on the ground, forever dangerous to naked feet. He hesitates, uncertain, for a moment longer, before he leaves more hurriedly than he should.

II.

They gut the Adjunct of all reusable parts within the next few klicks under Jor-El's supervision, and set course to the next closest prison ship in the zone. Dru-Zod finds Jor-El tinkering in the starboard observation deck, a makeshift laboratory somehow set up with old crates, gantries, benches and even an old bunk, soldered to the wall and filed smooth. The basic, outdated toolkits from the Adjunct's engine room have already been heavily modified, and a miniature tesseglyph console has somehow been created out of the Adjunct's hyperspatial module.

As he watches, Jor-El plugs a small transparent cube into the console receptacle, and the metal fingers of the tesseglyph hover and rotate fluidly until they form a perfect miniature model of the Adjunct. 

"Adjunct-bridge, prison term, seventy-second cycle, first klick, stellar-two," Jor-El instructs the console. The model melts upwards and outwards into a view of the ship's bridge. It's empty, and Jor-El cycles time and rooms until they find their first atrocity. 

Dru-Zod remembers this. There had been chambers near the dusty replicator that had been modified, with hooks soldered into the ceilings. The hooks had been stained but empty on the Adjunct. In the tesseglyph, however, a male Kryptonian hung like meat, stripped of hair, limbs and head severed, a bowl left under him to catch the blood. 

"That explains the damage done to many of the remains," Dru-Zod notes, as Jor-El startles violently with a gasp. "They must have eaten each other at the end." 

" _Eaten_ each other?" Jor-El repeats, horrified. "But _why_?"

"The replicator we salvaged wasn't functional. Our ship's onboard base operating system repaired it." Dru-Zod smiles thinly. "Too bad your AETHYR systems were only put into Council use cycles after their launch."

Jor-El clutches at the edge of the tesseglyph console, ashen. "But I specifically designed the shipboard replicators to have thousand-cycle capacities."

"And you never considered the possibility that someone might tamper with it," Dru-Zod points out blandly. "Adjunct-cantina, prison-term, seventy-second cycle, second klick, stellar-two." 

The replicator cube shown in the tesseglyph is clearly one of Jor-El's designs. Elegant and functional, it took up as little space as possible, set against the hull, all of its internal processors hidden under a silvery stenoslate facade. On the Adjunct-cantina, someone had managed to pry the cube off the hull, probably with a carbosteel slicer, and had ripped out its neat nests of qantic fibrowires. Luckily, the vandal hadn't stripped it of its servochips, but the old prison ship's onboard systems hadn't been equipped to repair the replicator cube. Conscious-capable AIs hadn't yet been invented during the launch of the Adjunct into the Phantom Zone. 

"I do not understand," Jor-El murmurs, sounding painfully lost, staring at the broken cube. "Why did they do that? Why would they damn themselves to starvation?"

It's easy to see why Jor-El loves machines: for all his intelligence, the Kryptonian has never understood people. "Why were _we_ damned to starvation?" Dru-Zod asks mildly. "Our ship has no replicator."

"At the end of our sentence our ship would have skipped back to Krypton," Jor-El points out, if uncomfortably, "And we were in cryostasis. We wouldn't have starved."

"Which would have worked out well had Krypton not imploded and reset our cryoterms. As you predicted. The point that I am trying to make," Dru-Zod adds impatiently, as Jor-El merely stares blankly at him, "Is that many people seize only a short term vision, and can never grasp a larger picture. And you're one of them, Jor. Look at this," Dru-Zod gestures curtly at the tesseglyph, then at the lab. 

"Look at _all_ of this. Your narrow focus on your _convictions_ murdered all the people on the prison ships as surely as if you shot them yourself. Your _conviction_ that the Council would have a change of heart if you only grovelled enough before them led to the destruction of our _world_. Will you continue to damn your entire race through your stubbornness?"

"I won't let you near my _son_ ," Jor-El snaps, the first sign of temper that Dru-Zod has seen since their ultimately futile struggle on the El estates.

"I'm not _interested_ in your son. Aethyr's reach, he'll even be protected and cherished among us! We're the last of our race, after all, and children have always been precious. What I want," Dru-Zod tries to control his tone, "Is the Codex."

Jor-El's jaw is clenched tight, and Dru-Zod knows that look, remembers it, as bittersweet as the rest of his memories of the Academy. As much as he's tempted to shake Jor-El a little more, he forces himself to be patient. Surely on one of the other, earlier ships there would be an intact Phantom Drive. And once they're out of the Phantom Zone, finding whatever corner of the galaxy the Codex has been squirrelled away into will just be a matter of time. 

And if Jor-El came around of his own will in the meantime, all the better.

III.

Jor-El, annoyingly enough, insists on checking on every Rao-damned prison ship despite finally salvaging a workable Phantom Drive from a prison ship close to the end of its cycle. One of the early versions of the Phantom Drive, this one hadn't been hyperspatially locked to Krypton, which meant that its exit skip wasn't linked to the now-defunct Krypton Phantom Gate.

This particular ship had held a greater prison population that had - just like the others - devolved into brutality and madness, and finally, death. Jor-El's curious to understand why. Dru-Zod and the rest can't _wait_ to skip out and preferably, never, ever return to the Phantom Zone ever again. 

The only force in Creation greater than Jor-El's stubbornness is his curiosity, however, and Dru-Zod ignores the grumblings of his spooked men and sets coordinates to the next prison ship. Besides, now that the new Phantom Drive is connected, Jor-El spends most of his time in the engine chambers, tinkering with the Drive and with the onboard ship systems. It's a good look for him, filthy to his knees and shoulders with shipgrit and aseleum grease, nothing of the prim and proper scientist in his sober House robes.

Above family, above his often idiotic moral convictions, this is Jor-El in his element, arms-deep in the bowels of a great machine, lost in creation itself, his handsome face distracted, transcendent, his movements economical and graceful. Dru-Zod has always liked to watch him work, secretly, and this is a quiet, personal pleasure that he hasn't had the chance to indulge in longer than he can remember.

It takes half a klick before Jor-El seems to realize that Dru-Zod is still present.

"If you are here about Lieutenant Faora-Ul," Jor-El notes, without looking away from the qantic core that he was calibrating, "Please explain to her that unfortunately the replicator is not equipped with sufficient grades of soyvon gel to create anything other than protein cubes, let alone something with as complex a cellular structure as a zuurt steak." 

Dru-Zod schools his expression. "What about coffee?"

"No. No coffee, no zuurt steaks, no tyrano-shark fillets, no grillig stews, and _certainly_ no oregus chips."

"Well then, what _are_ you good for?" Dru-Zod asks, unconsciously echoing words from cycles and cycles ago, back in their bunk room, when Dru-Zod had nearly stepped on a some sort of photon device on the floor of their room and-

Jor-El stares at him a little oddly, for a moment, and for a while, Dru-Zod thinks that he's forgotten the reference, eidetic memory and all. But then Jor-El turns back to the qantic core, his lips quirking briefly. "Unlike before," he notes, "I am now equipped with sufficient knowledge with which to build you a workable photon handcannon." 

"Glad to see that your career in science has been of some use," Dru-Zod observes, just as dryly, and Jor-El lets out a laugh before he swallows it and hunches hurriedly over the core.

The next ship, to everyone's surprise, contains survivors, whom apparently never got their communique due to a broken bridge comms link. Supposedly. Dru-Zod isn't in favour of taking them onto their ship - now renamed _Incarnate_. The convicts are, after all, the remnants of the criminal Kryptonian organisation known as the Shadow and the Claw, responsible for the brief revival of black market genesis trafficking and cert forgeries among the working-class desperate to try and tilt the genesis selection systems to their advantage.

Heretics. 

To everyone's further surprise, Jor-El disagrees with Dru-Zod's stated inclination to blast the convicts out of the nearest airlock, and actually threatens to leave the _Incarnate_ himself. Reluctantly, Dru-Zod allows the convicts to board, which is of course the point where everything goes to hell. 

The convicts were smart about their mutiny, and unfortunately, thanks to the prison ship's unmanned design, Dru-Zod and his command are all unarmed, while several of the convicts had black market biomods built into them that the Council seemed to have blithely forgotten to remove when they jettisoned the Shadow and the Claw into the Phantom Zone. 

The prison ship's big, and a headlong battle isn't going to work out in their favour. Dru-Zod reluctantly gives the command to scatter, hopes that Jor-El doesn't decide to do something ridiculous, and creeps around familiar ground, taking out roving patrols as he goes. The modded cons are easier to handle in twos, mostly: there's a big bruiser who's obviously the right hand man of the one in charge who has servosteel terras built into his grafted exoskeleton that Dru-Zod is avoiding for now until he has a better plan, preferably involving an airlock. 

And then while he's inching through the upper vent service crawlspaces, he looks down through a grating to see Jor-El performing efficient first aid on Faora-Ul, putting a compress on a wound that's spotting the bandage with blood. Tyrano-shark teeth fragments, a scalpel and tweezers have been scattered on a tray next to the makeshift workbench, stained with blood, and Faora-Ul has her teeth sunk into a rag, breathing hard, her eyes dull from pain. 

Jor-El moves on to set Faora-Ul's leg, when Faora-Ul abruptly tries to sit up, and the servosteel brute barrels into Jor-El before she can shout a warning. She snarls, grabbing the scalpel and sinking it into the brute's back, but he doesn't even seem to register it, backhanding Faora-Ul out of sight. Jor-El actually puts up a brief, good fight until the speed amp in the exoskeleton gets the better of him, and the brute slams him down into the workbench, a huge hand around his neck. 

"Hello, Z'dtictor," the brute growls, his dialect thick with street cant. "You've been a rokkin' pain in the aether. Think we wouldn't see the sabotage, you?" Jor-El gasps out in pain as the brute lifts him effortlessly and slams him back down against the bench. Something cracks with a sickening sound, and Dru-Zod finds that his hands are clenched so tight that his palms are stinging. He has to move on. Find a weapon. Surely the cons aren't stupid enough to kill Jor-El: they had recognised him, after all. Hard not to recognise Krypton's foremost scientific mind. 

"Hear you're the one who made them ships," the brute continues, choking Jor-El briefly as his hand tightens. "Hear you can get us outta here. But y'know what, Z'dtictor? I think maybe you owe us for all the nights we spent alone on our lonesome out in the void." 

To Dru-Zod's horror, the degenerate brute's free hand has gone to the catches on his britches, and Jor-El claws at the fingers clenched at his throat. 

He's heard of crimes like these. Unimaginable ones, in a post-evolutionary world.

He should move on. 

He can't. 

The brute yells in surprise when the grille is kicked out over his head, and Dru-Zod lands on his back, digging his feet into the exoskeleton, trying to get a chokehold around the brute's thick neck. The con _roars_ , throwing himself back, trying to dislodge Dru-Zod by slamming him against the wall, but he holds on grimly, wincing, scrabbling higher until he gets the angle and leverage. The servosteel terras along the brute's left arm and flank punch into his ribs, biting easily through persteel armor, but he grits his teeth and hangs on, tightening his grip, blocking out the pain. 

This is an entirely stupid way of facing terramodded cons, he thinks dimly; the blood loss will get him if the terravir poison doesn't - but eventually the con goes limp, and he's dropping in slow motion, taking forever to hit the ground. Terravir poisoning, Dru-Zod thinks, as the impact sears down his body with the poison's sensory overload. He can feel fingers against his cheek, then down to his shoulder, stripping away his armor, and even _this_ is agony.

There's a whispered litany above him that he struggles to focus on, Jor-El's voice, " _Dru_ , oh, _Dru_ ," and the damn poison keeps him from blacking out, keeps him screaming himself raw as Jor-El injects him with something and pins down one of his arms with his knees. After a moment, Faora-Ul leans on the other, and even their skin contact _burns_ ; the setgel and medical adhesive that Jor-El applies to his wounds even worse. 

He's never been so glad for military bioconditioning. The terravir poison bleeds itself out by the time Jor-El is done, and if there's a reason why he shouldn't go unconscious, Dru-Zod can't really grasp it. 

He wakes up in his cabin, high on anaesthetics. The pain's numbed, and he feels sluggish as he looks around. Jor-El is folded precariously onto a chair beside his bed, asleep, mouth agape and snoring, and Dru-Zod can't help his grin. Old memories. 

Jor-El jerks awake when Dru-Zod tries to sit up, and won't talk until Dru-Zod swallows a carafe of water and suffers through another injection. "We've taken back the ship," Jor-El starts by saying, and doesn't seem to notice Dru-Zod's faint smirk at the 'we'. "Unfortunately, Lieutenant Faora-Ul ordered everyone executed, despite my protests."

"'Unfortunately'?" Dru-Zod arches an eyebrow. 

Jor-El avoids his eyes. "Surely not all of them are culpable-"

"If I had not intervened at that moment," Dru-Zod interrupts in a rasp, "What do you think would have happened, Jor?" 

"I… I, of course I am grateful for the rescue," Jor-El mumbles, and Dru-Zod feels abruptly guilty. It still has to be a shock. 

After all, it's been centuries since sexual activity has been necessary. Crass sexual impulses, particularly of the violent sort that the brute displayed, have long been bred out of proper House bloodlines, further proof that selective survival is necessary to the Kryptonian race, in Dru-Zod's opinion.

"And I am grateful that I was there," Dru-Zod says carefully, reaching up to grasp Jor-El's shoulder. It's meant to be a friendly gesture, but somehow, his hand drifts up to Jor-El's cheek, instead, and before he can pull away, Jor-El has pressed his hand over his, holding it in place. His skin is impossibly warm, the gesture so shockingly tender that Dru-Zod forgets to breathe. 

"I'm glad that you are here," Jor-El says in a rush, as though he's afraid that he'll regret it, then he falters when Dru-Zod stares at him. "Not, not right here, I mean, in the Phantom Zone on a prison ship, and well, I still think that you deserved it but-"

"Of all the people whom I hoped could survive Krypton's end," Dru-Zod cuts in frankly, "I feel blessed that they are all on this ship with me. At the end of all the days of our world, that we alone were saved," he adds, wryly, "The final irony of it all." 

Jor-El doesn't say anything about his son, though his eyes flicker, and he squeezes Dru-Zod's palm. They have a truce, of sorts.

IV.

Morale improves when they finally skip out of the Phantom Zone, towards the closest colony away from Krypton: Qasatt. It'll take several klicks to get into orbital space from the phantom skip lode, and even Faora-Ul starts cracking jokes about all the zuurt steaks that she'll be eating on shore leave. Cut off as the colonies have been, they hopefully won't recognise a prison ship when they see one, and Dru-Zod has to admit that the potential of a bowl of oregus chips and zuurt butter is definitely worth approaching a potentially hostile Kryptonian colony over.

Jor-El laughs at him, but still spends all his time patching up the spare phantom drive that they salvaged from one of the prison ships, in case they need to trade for supplies. He submits a long list of requisitions to Dru-Zod, most of it medical in nature, some of it soyvon, and Dru-Zod takes it as a good sign. He had been briefly worried that Jor-El would want to try and settle down on the Kryptonian colony.

Granted, this wouldn't be a real problem: colonies would have genesis chambers and a functional habitat, which would mean that all Dru-Zod would need to do is locate the Codex and come back. Such a mission would even be easier without Jor-El's presence, after all: he'll have to watch Jor-El for sabotage at every corner if they got close to the Codex. 

Still. Dru-Zod would miss him. It's an unsettling thought.

Qasatt doesn't answer their hailing, and they settle uncomfortably into orbital space. The prison ship doesn't have planetary scan capabilities, which means that they'll have to go surfaceside, into a potentially hot situation. Still unarmed. Jor-El dithers unhappily for an entire klick before he finally caves to cajoling and mocks up enough prototype proton weaponry for the ground crew, salvaged from old fuel cells.

He does, however, whine and complain when Dru-Zod forces him to stay shipside with Jax-Ur. They loathe each other, but hopefully won't try to kill each other in his absence. Still, they snipe at each other over the comms until even Ro-Zar starts getting twitchy in the dropship, and fall into an injured silence only when Faora-Ul threatens to cut out their tongues if they don't shut the _rokk_ up. Dru-Zod tries not to grin.

They manage to stay silent up until the dropship makes it surfaceside, and then Jor-El says, "Atmos readings from the dropship indicate that the air isn't breathable, Dru." 

Dru-Zod ignores the pointed glance that Faora-Ul shoots him. Jor-El's taken to calling him 'Dru' instead of his usual, politely ironic 'General', ever since they had skipped out of the Phantom Zone, and as much as it probably isn't good for discipline, he finds that he's rather missed it since the Academy. "Suit up."

Qasatt is all blackened sand and craggy rock. The atmosphere's fairly close to Krypton's, as is the apparent climate, which is probably why the settlers had chosen to stay, but Dru-Zod can't imagine what else would have attracted them to this dead planet. They hadn't done too badly, though - a town had been built up, though its biosphere had been breached - the top still a shattered, jagged hole that stared out towards an orange sun. 

Whatever had happened had happened more or less all at once, though. Chairs and workbenches were overturned, consoles left scattered. They sweep the colony town, searching for salvage and survivors.

It was Car-Vex who finds what was left of the bodies, in an involuntary exhalation of breath. Dru-Zod hurries over, even as the Rao-damned scientists start chattering again, though this time in tandem: they've got a prime view of everything through the ground crews' helmvid links.

"Bones cracked for marrow," Jax-Ur notes.

"Dentition varies," Jor-El agrees. "Not an import, I should think. World-engines don't contain alpha-pred stock." 

"Exit tunnels lead into rock. Natural tunnels." 

"Weather-smoothness, wind erosion."

"Underground biosphere?" 

"Without a planetscan-" 

"Agreed, pure conjecture."

"Construction had progressed considerably. The world engine's defunct." 

"Aftershock tectonic shifts attracting predators?"

"Or a migratory-"

" _Silence_ ," Dru-Zod snaps. "Jor, what happened to the colonists?"

"Eaten by natural fauna. Probably underground dwelling alpha predators, large ones," Jor-El replies promptly, then adds, cautiously, "Perhaps you should consider returning to the dropship, Dru."

"These people are long dead," Dru-Zod disagrees. "Car-Vex, take cover. Watch this tunnel. All units, supply sweep." 

They find the colony's armoury cache by the time the sun starts to set, not that it does them any good against the multi-jawed worm-beasts that boil out of the tunnel after dark, their hundreds of limbs skittering and swarming them over buildings, their heads easily half as tall as a Kryptonian. The photon cannons handle well, though; the bright flash of the disruptor coil seems to disorient the otherwise seemingly invulnerable monsters, and they pack into the dropship and get liftoff with only minor injuries. 

Back on the _Incarnate_ , Jor-El tries to hide his relief under annoyance. "I _told_ you to return shipside before dark," he keeps saying, as he synthesizes an antidote to the worm-beasts' paralytic poison. Dru-Zod can't feel his thigh, which is a bit of a blessing. He's going to get a lot of interesting scars out of this encounter. 

"Jax-Ur can handle the infirmary," Dru-Zod notes, amused when Jor-El glowers at him.

"Since these are _my_ requisitioned supplies," Jor-El retorts, "They're mine to deal with as I see fit." 

Dru-Zod isn't fooled. Jor-El was more than happy to let Jax-Ur filch supplies to patch up Faora-Ul's arm injuries. "We took so long returning shipside because of your Rao-damned list," he adds, and grins when Jor-El's scowl intensifies. 

"No, you took so long returning shipside because, I quote, 'leaving a workable cache of subtronic grenades behind is not acceptable'."

"I like grenades," Dru-Zod admits, and grins again when Jor-El's bandaging grows savage.

V.

The next colony they find seems to have died of disease. A detailed atmos scan, courtesy of supplies rigged up from Qasatt, indicates that Rhonoa Colony is now virus-free, though, so the colony seems safe to explore in greater depth. It's a pretty world, fully terraformed, the air breathable if slightly astringent, and the imported crops and flora have long overgrown the colony perimeter. The scientists potter around within the secured perimeter, even as Dru-Zod glumly stares at the smashed genesis chamber.

He's there long enough that Jor-El eventually gets curious and checks on him. Rhonoa's genesis chamber had been reinforced, but a subtronic charge had done for the plasteel glass regardless. The pods were gray from dust, as were the servobots, lying where they had fallen on the ground. He isn't sure why the colonists destroyed the genesis chamber. Preventing the spread of whatever pandemic had taken them, in case of a future wave of colonists, perhaps? 

"Such a waste," Dru-Zod says finally, into the silence, as Jor-El stands next to him.

"It's just tech," Jor-El replies indifferently, scanning the pods. All of them were empty, thank Rao. 

Dru-Zod narrows his eyes. "Better than natural birth." 

It's a topic that he's been avoiding for a while, but they can't skirt around it forever. Jor-El swallows, and instead of snapping at him, actually has the gall to look amused. "Lara did express this sentiment fairly often as the months went on," he notes, and looks away, up to the empty pods. His jaw clenches slightly, and Dru-Zod supposes that, deluded as Lara Lor-Van had been, there was perhaps something to be said for a love that was so great that it ignored heresy.

"I am sorry for your loss," Dru-Zod offers, a little awkwardly, and Jor-El shoots him a startled glance. "She was brave," Dru-Zod adds stiffly, when the silence stretches. 

"That she was," Jor-El notes carefully, and it's a further step in their truce, Dru-Zod decides, as they stand in the genesis room companionably, surrounded by old ghosts. At least, up until Jor-El's curiosity raises its head again. "I'm surprised that you never paired up."

"Never had the inclination," Dru-Zod retorts stiffly. 

"Again, I'm surprised," Jor-El smiles, "Given your obsession with bloodlines."

"I find _your_ lack of interest in them astonishing," Dru-Zod shot back, "You, of the House of El, of the blood of Rao himself-"

"Superstition," Jor-El cuts in, annoyingly amused again. "Pure superstition." 

"But to marry a scion of a second-tier House-" 

"Lara was a good Kryptonian," Jor-El interrupts, this time with a steely tone to his voice. "Besides," he adds, a touch more conciliatory, "Isn't it time to look beyond bloodlines, Dru? Our race is almost extinct."

"And of those of us who have survived," Dru-Zod points out, "All of us are from the First Houses. El, Zod, Ul, An, Ur, Em, Zar and Vex. You laugh at superstition, Jor, but is it not serendipity that scions of the Eight Pure Lines were the only survivors?" 

"Monstrous coincidence, you mean," Jor-El growls, clenching his hands. "Or not so much coincidence at all. After all, you've always surrounded yourself only by 'pure' scions. It's not a stretch of the imagination to see why they were imprisoned along with you."

"I was looking to the future, Jor-" 

"No, you were looking to the past," Jor-El snaps back, "When all of Krypton was feudal, and our so-called noble-class bled the rest of Krypton of wealth and resources-"

"I would have saved _all_ of Krypton if I could!" Dru-Zod snarls, stung, "But given the number of skip-capable ships left on Krypton, what else could I do? If you could only save a handful, wouldn't you save those who are important to you? _You_ chose to save your _son_ -"

"Don't you _dare_ bring up my son!"

"You'll hoard the joy of life for yourself," Dru-Zod spits, gesturing at the broken genesis chamber, "While because of your actions, the rest of us will never know what it is like to have children."

Jor-El jerks back, as though Dru-Zod had dealt him a physical blow. "Dru-" he tries, but Dru-Zod's had enough of Jor-El's self-righteousness for the day: he storms out. 

Rather to his surprise, Jor-El approaches him later on the bridge of the _Incarnate_ , his posture meek and conciliatory. "We're very likely to find an operational genesis chamber in our travels, since every scoutship that set out from the final expansion century was equipped with one." 

"But without DNA codes-"

"Jax-Ur and I have been taking DNA samples from the settlers, and referencing them with the uploaded datapacks that we salvaged from the colony systems," Jor-El continued, as though he hadn't spoken. "I'm upgrading the AETHYR systems on this ship for life-splicing."

Now that was surprising. Dru-Zod blinks, unsure of what to say, and Jor-El mutters, "Unless, of course, you think that the _bloodlines_ of all these colonists aren't acceptable."

There's a nerve there, Dru-Zod senses. He's gotten this much from Jor-El already. He's going to have to be patient. And besides, he's never really had any grudge against the lower tier Houses: his choice to save only the higher tier Houses wasn't personal. "Will you at least scan the biocode for genetic deformities or diseases?"

"Of course," Jor-El visibly relaxes: he even smiles, a little tentatively. "Not that I think that you will make a very good parent, adoptive or not. Or any of your crew. Except maybe Faora-Ul. And if this works - if we find a genesis chamber that is at the least, repairable - we're going to be the only adult Kryptonians around."

"I'll relay your vote of confidence to the lieutenant," Dru-Zod notes dryly. "We could practice in the meantime."

"Practice? On what?"

"Your son," Dru-Zod keeps his tone mild as he tests the boundaries. Jor-El stiffens, his lips compressing. "Surely you don't still think that I mean your House any harm. I stayed my hand when I reached your lab." When Jor-El says nothing, Dru-Zod adds, allowing himself some irritation, "If you think that bloodline means nothing, then why are you comfortable allowing us to raise the children of colonist bloodlines but not your own son?" 

"I don't want him to grow up with all this bloodline nonsense in his head," Jor-El retorts.

"So you'll rather that he grows up fatherless, with no family, sent out to a colony that could have already been dead?" Dru-Zod narrows his eyes. "You, who could care about the lives of convicts who have done us violence? Why don't you want to check on your own son?" 

"Dru, please," Jor-El whispers, his tone jarringly desperate. "I'll help you with this. All of this. Salvaging tech, life-splicing the gene sequences that we find, whatever you want. But leave my son alone." 

"I think that you know exactly where you sent him," Dru-Zod muses, stalking closer, and Jor-El doesn't budge, though he straightens up. "You know that the colony there was successful. I won't put it beyond you to have somehow built hyperspace probes when the Council deemed it impossible _and_ forbidden." He's right up in Jor-El's personal space, now, their noses inches apart. "Am I right, _old friend_?"

Jor-El makes an inarticulate sound, and Dru-Zod's about to try shaking him when lips press hard against his. He startles, almost shoving Jor-El away, but hands have curled tight over his shoulders, as Jor-El licks against him, and it takes a long and frozen moment for Dru-Zod to recognise this a primitive courtship gesture. He's seen it described in the pre-Eminence historical vidglyphs, and hadn't ever seen the point of it - at least, not until now. 

His mouth is sensitive, Dru-Zod realizes, with dull shock, odd as it seems for a biological food receptacle to be, and his heart rate's picking up, skin flushing. Tentatively, he licks Jor-El back, for a taste, and picks up the hint of spice from salvaged cryostock from this klick's dinner. Tilting his head, he licks harder, until Jor-El is pressed against him, as much contact as they could get, making a whimpering sound in his throat that makes his heart start to hammer.

"What," Dru-Zod breathes, when Jor-El pulls back, "By the Oversoul, Jor, what have you - did you do this with Lara?"

Jor-El actually grins, in the face of pure heresy and the antithesis of post-evolutionary behaviour. "There's more," he says slyly, and Dru-Zod really should shake him, shake Jor-El until he stops smiling that secretive little smile and throw him into the ship's brig. He doesn't do anything, however, only stares, and Jor-El's smile eventually slips. "My apologies, I couldn't-" He tries to step back, but Dru-Zod holds him in place. 

"Couldn't what?"

"Couldn't… help myself," Jor-El admits, uncomfortably, and there's a raw honesty in his eyes that makes Dru-Zod's stomach flip.

"When did this start? These… impulses? With me?" Dru-Zod clarifies warily, and Jor-El blinks at him, as though surprised that he asked. "Jor."

"Ah." Jor-El starts to blush, until even the tips of his ears are red, not a becoming look on one of the most famous scions of the House of El, especially at his age, but Dru-Zod feels his chest tighten oddly regardless. "It's been a while."

"A while?"

This time, Jor-El's stubbornness sets in, and he glances up defiantly, his embarrassment subsumed. "Since the Academy, if you really must know."

The Academy! Dru-Zod feels shaken. Cycles upon cycles ago. Before Jor-El's choice to join the scientists. Before _Lara_. "Aethyr's breath, Jor, why didn't you ever say anything?"

"Well," Jor-El begins, then he falters, and after a few fits and starts, chuckles, low and soft. "You never seemed interested. All you ever talked about in the Academy was military strategy. And guns. And grenades," Jor-El adds wryly. 

"I like grenades," Dru-Zod agrees, and maybe it's impulse, maybe it's the infuriating crooked curve to Jor-El's mouth, but he leans forward and presses his lips, tentatively, against Jor-El's. Their noses bump, and it's briefly too ridiculous for his liking, but Jor-El sneaks a hand around the back of his neck and pressed them closer together.

"If I stay," Jor-El murmurs, when they part, "I would like to stay because of you, Dru. Not because I have to. Not because of my son." 

Jor-El's loyalty is a tempting thing, even if it wasn't sweetened by… whatever this new thing was, between them, this pre-evolutionary heresy. Mere klicks ago, though, Dru-Zod would probably have laughed in his face. Now, he hesitates, long enough that Jor-El smiles hesitantly and touches his lips to the edge of his mouth.

This is a kiss, Dru-Zod recalls the term belatedly. And it should repulse him, this hardly sanitary, non-essential physical fluid transfer, but it doesn't. They kiss on the bridge until Jax-Ur happens by, looking for Dru-Zod: the other scientist squawks in shock, pointing a horrified finger at the both of them, but before Dru-Zod can react, Faora-Ul grasps Jax-Ur's arm firmly from behind him and drags him away.

"Hm," Jor-El noses at his jaw, as though nothing had happened. "And here I was under the impression that Jax-Ur could not be shocked by anything."

"You're a filthy heretic," Dru-Zod tells him, and presses a kiss between his eyes.

VI.

Sex turns out to be appallingly unsanitary, and Dru-Zod isn't surprised that several pre-evolutionary pandemics were spread through sexual transfer. He finds that he can't complain, though, somehow. There's something unholy in Jor-El's beauty when undressed and flush against him, skin to skin, their arousals slick and rubbing together, squeezed in Jor-El's elegant fingers. He's briefly, irrationally, jealous of Lara, that Lara has seen this side of Jor-El that Dru-Zod had never known existed until now, and his kisses turn savage as he flips them around, bucking his hips into Jor-El's fingers, his hands pressed tight over his cheeks.

Jor-El only moans, his hand pumping their flesh more quickly, then he grins abruptly and bites down against Dru-Zod's neck even as he rubs a thumb over the flushed tip of Dru-Zod's arousal. Orgasm is shockingly overwhelming, and Dru-Zod finds himself hunched over Jor-El's frame, wide-eyed and locked up, his mind a white roar of noise and ecstasy. If Jor-El didn't look so beautifully, perfectly wrecked and awed when he finished in turn, Dru-Zod would have felt a little shamed; instead, he kisses him again, fiercely, even with their breathing uneven against them. Briefly, he wishes that their bio-engineered bodies weren't built to take so much punishment; when he bites down against Jor-El's shoulder, his teeth leave no mark. 

"Did you use to do this often?" Dru-Zod asks Jor-El suspiciously, and when Jor-El doesn't immediately respond, adds soberly, "Forgive me, I-"

"No, no." Jor-El kisses his forehead, then pecks his nose. "Often enough." Dru-Zod grimaces, scandalised despite himself, and Jor-El manages a soft laugh. "She knew about you, Dru," Jor-El says finally. "I told her." 

"You… why would you do that?"

"Our union held no secrets between us," Jor-El stroked a warm palm down his chest, distractingly. "I told her at the beginning of our pairing that I was unsure if I could love her as she should be loved. She said that she was willing to see if I could learn. And I did, Dru," Jor-El's breath leaves him in a sigh. "I loved her. Especially at the end."

"I know that you did," Dru-Zod isn't good at comfort, but he tries, petting Jor-El's naked flank awkwardly. "I'm glad that you had her," he adds, and surprises himself with his honesty. "And if you truly do not trust me enough to do right by her memory by cherishing her son, with you, I'm willing to see if I can someday earn that trust from you." 

Jor-El blinks at him, his lips parting briefly, and he hesitates, long enough for Dru-Zod to squeeze his hip gently. "It isn't a question of trust," Jor-El says, finally. "Not entirely." 

"As I said. I will wait." 

"But not forever," Jor-El points out, and now his smile is tired. He does, however, kiss Dru-Zod again, and when they curl together under the sheets, he clings to him, his cheek pressed over Dru-Zod's heart. It's not yet enough, Dru-Zod thinks, as he tentatively curls his fingers into the fine threads of Jor-El's mane of hair. But maybe someday it will be.

**Author's Note:**

> If you would like to discuss ficbunnies, you can reach me on twitter @manic_intent :)


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